MARK PRIOR STANDS on the mound at Wrigley Field, takes
a deep breath, and gazes around as if he were a tourist looking at the Grand
Canyon.

Oh, look at the ivy on the outfield walls. Look at that
old-fashioned scoreboard and famous rooftop seats. There's Sammy in right field.
There's the standing room-only crowd of 40,000, screaming.

Wait a minute, Prior suddenly realizes, they're cheering
for him. There are at least nine adults and kids spotted in the stands
who shelled out $139 for their official Cubs' Prior jerseys. There's Steve Shaw
in the left-field corner, jumping up and down, and holding a sign, "Winning
is a PRIOR-ity." There's Zach Pagan near the Cubs' bullpen, telling everyone
who'll listen that Prior will lead the Cubs to the World Series.

There's his dad, Jerry, standing in section 118, row 9,
seat 109, wiping tears from his eyes during the national anthem and chewing
his nails during the game. There's his mom, Millie, and grandmother, Marion,
who says she still has bruises on her legs from playing catch all those afternoons
with Mark as a kid. Two rows back are his agents, John Boggs and Tony Cabral,
who are like family. There's his girlfriend, Heather, brother, sister and 49
friends and relatives in for the game.

"I wanted to check out the scenery and soak it all in,"
says Prior, 6-5, 225 pounds. "You only get one major league debut, and I wanted
to get a panoramic view.

"But that's when it started to hit me. I was getting a
lump in my throat and my heart started pounding. That's when I knew I was nervous."

Prior keeps telling himself to relax. He's been involved
in plenty of pressure situations. He had the pressure of turning down $1.5 million
from the Yankees to go to Vanderbilt, and then transfer to USC. He had the pressure
of trying to get his team back to the College World Series. He had the pressure
of pitchingfor the USA National Team.

And, of course, he had the pressure his junior year to
produce each and every time, knowing that millions of dollars were riding on
each start, culminating in a four-year, $10.5 million guarantee when he was
drafted with the No. 2 pick.

Yet, here he stood on the mound, knowing that in a matter
of seconds, he would be making his major league debut for the Cubs at Wrigley
Field, fulfilling a dream for him and his whole family.

This is where he wanted to go last year, praying that the
Minnesota Twins would pass so he could end up in Chicago. This is where his
dad grew up, often telling him the story of how he saw Ernie Banks hit a grand
slam in his first game at Wrigley in 1959 when he was in the eighth grade.

This is the place that Prior would see on WGN at his San
Diego home, revering Ryne Sandberg and Mark Grace, wondering what it would be
like to be actually pitching for the Cubs. And this is the site where Dick Serrano,
his high school baseball coach, and Mike Gillespie, his coach at USC, would
love to see on TV ... now! They are frantically calling WGN and Direct TV wondering
why the game isn't being shown in Southern California. (The game was blacked
out because of an ESPN national telecast.)

"I just shelled out $200 for Direct TV, just so I could
see Mark," Gillespie says, "and the game isn't on! You don't think I was upset?"

Prior is as excited as the folks back home, showing up
at the ballpark at 2:50 for a 7:05 start  about two hours early.

You should try staying calm when the entire city
of Chicago is hyping your arrival, saying it's bigger than the debuts of Michael
Jordan, Gale Sayers and Kerry Wood combined.

You should try staying relaxed when Cubs fans are
calling you the savior, believing that you alone can end a half-century's worth
of frustration and take the Cubs to the World Series.

So what does the kid do?

He goes out and dominates the Pittsburgh Pirates, strikes
out 10 batters on 94-mph fastballs and sharp-breaking curves, gives up just
four hits in six innings, wins his major-league debut, and now has everyone
wondering if the Cubs can get back into the NL Central race.

"He's got a chance to be pretty damn good," says Scott
Nethery, special assistant to Atlanta GM John Schuerholz. "Who knows how he'll
end up, but instead of people trying to compare him to different pitchers, one
day, people might be comparing everyone to him.

"Yeah, he's that good."

PRIOR, WEARING A blue knit shirt and black pants, is shoveling
a spoon of oatmeal into his mouth at the team hotel in Houston last Saturday
morning, knowing he needs to make a call back home.

It's time to call his girlfriend's uncle, Bill White, who
owns the Ascot Shop in La Jolla, Calif. He needs to buy some suits, jackets
and trousers. Here he is on a two-city, six-game trip, and all he brought along
was one suit.

Then again, all he owns is one suit.

He received a $4 million signing bonus, but his shopping
spree consisted of buying a Lexus SUV. The rest of the money went into the bank
and safe investments.

"I'm not going to change," says Prior, who went back to
USC last fall and is just 20 hours shy of completing his marketing degree. "I'm
not going to start clubbing or going out in limos. I'm laid-back and I'm going
to stay that way."

Prior may be baseball's new golden boy, but his ego could
fit a Wrigley beer vendor. There was the time his folks put a framed action
shot of him in the house between pictures of Clemens and Ryan. He told them
it was embarrassing, and pleaded for them to take it down. After transferring
from Vanderbilt as a sophomore, he was designated as USC's star pitcher, who
would star in every Friday's marquee game. He didn't feel it was right, making
sure that senior-year pitcher Rik Currier was OK with it before he accepted
the role.

"He was very low-key (about) his status," says Dick Serrano,
Prior's coach at University High School in San Diego. "He didn't want the spotlight
on him over his teammates. He was the most polished high school pitcher I ever
had, even more than Barry Zito, but he was willing to wait his turn and let
the seniors have the glory."

He pitched at Double-A West Tenn and Triple-A Iowa this
season, with the Cubs allowing him to get nine starts in the minors before he
was brought up May 21. No matter, Prior acted as if he were a genuine minor
league teammate, rooting them on as if they were tagging along to the big leagues
with him. He loved it in Tennessee, covering his mouth with his glove while
laughing on the mound one night when West Tenn manager Bobby Dickerson got ejected
for arguing a play at first in which he thought Prior picked off the runner.

"I said, 'Bobby, I don't think one complete sentence came
out of your mouth when you were arguing,' " Prior said. "I couldn't help but
laugh."

Dickerson and the boys in West Tenn made sure to get autographs
from Prior before he departed. Dickerson kept the lineup card from every game
that Prior pitched and had him autograph each one. Iowa manager Bruce Kimm didn't
go that far, but he did get six autographs for himself and 10 for the boys at
the local golf club.

"The buildup for his starts, and the buzz in this town
reminded me of Mark 'The Bird' Fidrych," says Kimm, who was Fidrych's personal
catcher for the Tigers in 1976. "But his poise was unbelievable. It never bothered
him.

"And when he hit those two home runs (May 7) for us, I'm
thinking to myself, 'God, this is the way Babe Ruth must have been.' "

Prior, who homered three times in 19 at-bats in the minors,
won't be confused with Sosa anytime soon. Yet, he loves swinging the bat, hitting
15 home runs his senior year of high school. He could have easily batted for
himself his final year at USC, but after he suffered back spasms while batting
in preseason workouts, Gillespie took no chances.

"Hey, the guy has got light-tower power," Gillespie says.
"He can take BP with Sammy Sosa or anyone. But I'll admit, I was pretty nervous
about blowing out this guy's ankle while sliding into second base. I was looking
for a reason for him not to hit. And when he had that twinge, that's all I needed.

"So now here I am, and I got a call from his dad at Wrigley
Field. (Augie) Ojeda had just sacrificed a runner to third. And Jerry calls
me and says, 'You know, if you had developed my kid as a hitter, he might be
able to drive in a run here.'

"I said, 'Well, I'm still waiting for that check for being
the No. 1 pitcher in the draft.' He says, 'Right, right, right.' And he hangs
up on me."

Prior, elated that the Cubs would have enough confidence
in him to let him try to drive in the run, grounded out to second.

"I remember being up at the plate, and you know what I'm
thinking about?" Prior says. "I'm thinking what it must be like facing Randy
Johnson. I'm thinking, this guy (Pirates starter David Williams) is 6 feet,
6-1, so can you imagine what it'll be like facing Johnson, who's 6-10, and throwing
98-99 mph. It's mind-boggling."

THE CUBS' VISITING CLUBHOUSE in Houston is reverberating
with the sounds of Sosa's boom box. The Cubs have won again. In fact, they finished
the week undefeated since Prior's arrival.

Yep, just like that, Cubs manager Don Baylor's job is secure
again. Fred McGriff's bat has awakened, and he's driven in 25 runs this month.
And the Cubs are playing their best defense of the season.

They entered the week with a 19-29 record, nine games behind
the Cincinnati Reds. It's too early to talk about winning the division, Baylor
says, but it has become awfully clear how Prior's arrival has brought new life
to the team.

"I laugh when people say I can be the (savior)," Prior
says. "I'm just trying to fit in. One person can't do that. Look at Sammy, as
big as he is in the game, he can't win games all by himself. Look at A-Rod.
This isn't basketball where a guy like Shaq can score 50 points and grab 25
rebounds and dominate."

The Cubs know that Prior has an enormous future, and they
believe that with Kerry Wood, Jon Lieber, Matt Clement and Juan Cruz around,
they'll have one of the finest young rotations in baseball.

The outrageous expectations of Prior remain unrealistic,
Cubs President Andy MacPhail realizes. Prior won't go undefeated this season.
He can't carry the Cubs to the World Series by himself. And he'll have plenty
of bumps along the way, just like every other young pitcher.

Yet, the key is how he reacts to adversity, and if Prior's
debut is any indication, the Cubs believe he'll be around for a long, long time.

Prior was cruising with a 5-1 lead into the sixth inning
in his debut. Pirates left fielder Brian Giles, Prior's good buddy, led off
the sixth by hitting a fastball that appeared to be a routine fly ball. It got
caught up in the 18-mph wind, and carried right over the left-field fence. Instead
of moping or moaning, Prior got angry. He struck out Aramis Ramirez and Rob
Mackowiak swinging, and induced a groundout from Jason Kendall. His night was
done.

"His entire demeanor is much more mature than the years
indicate," MacPhail says. "If you believe you get so many lives to work toward
perfection, he's had a few lives already.

"I don't know how anybody can be immune to making his major
league debut at Wrigley, with a standing room-only crowd and with the wind blowing
out, but he did it."

The hordes of scouts in attendance were equally impressed.
They had Prior's fastball clocked at 94-95 mph, and when he appeared to tire
in the fifth and sixth innings, his fastball actually had more movement. He
wound up throwing 103 pitches, including 30 curveballs  19 for strikes.

"For his first start at the major league level, he did
a hell of a job," says former major league manager Jim Fregosi, scouting for
the Braves. "The kid has got great command. He's got a great body for pitching,
and throws his fastball and curveball above average. He looks like he's got
a real good feel for pitching.

"I don't think he'll feel the pressure." Fregosi adds.
"When you have 40-50 scouts in the stands every time you start in college, knowing
you've got the chance to be a No. 1 or 2 draft pick, that's a whole lot more
pressure than pitching professionally.

"Personally, I think this kid is going to be great for
the game."

Prior, who faced the Pirates, the worst-hitting team in
the National League, in his first two starts, should have his first big test
Saturday against the Houston Astros. It'll be his first chance to face Jeff
Bagwell, Lance Berkman and company.

"I don't care who he goes against, that team has their
hands full," says Astros advance scout Fred Nelson, who was at Prior's debut.
"He reminds me so much of Kerry Wood. He's got the whole package.

"What makes him tough is that he hides the ball real well,
too. It's hard for the hitters to pick up. It gets on the hitters quicker than
you think. And when his fastball drops in velocity, it has more movement.

"He's very, very impressive."

Time will tell.

And the Cubs, of course, are well-versed in patience.

An entire Cubs nation will be watching.

"Can you imagine that town if we won?" Prior says. "That's
one of the reasons I wanted to go there. I want to be a part of that. I heard
people say it would be even bigger than when the Bulls won.